How Did Magwitch Influence Pip And Joe's Relationship Essay

Although neither are his biological parents, Joe Gargery and Abel Magwitch both serve as father figures for Pip in Great Expectations. Joe became a positive role model for Pip during his youth by instilling good morals and ethics into him while also being present around the house in lieu of his birth father. Magwitch supplements Joe as a father figure by financing Pip during his aspirations to become a gentleman and providing his life story for Pip to derive a moral from. Even though Magwitch and Joe support Pip in different ways, both of them mend Pip into the person he is at the end of the novel. Pip inherits an improved moral judgement and realizes the unimportance for material possessions from his relationships with Joe and Magwitch. Joe guided Pip through his childhood and adolescent life by teaching him proper ethics and behavior. As a child, Pip once spent over an hour to create a brief, phonetic message to Joe about teaching him to learn how to write. (Dickens 45). Despite being only able to recognize his own misspelled name, Joe praised Pip for his wanting for knowledge and work ethic. Pip’s desire for knowledge eventually lead to a yearning for prestige and affluence, which he obsesses

During Pip’s childhood, Joe’s praise for Pip’s desire of learning and his observable conflict with Jaggers provide Pip with basic moral concepts that make Pip ponder on his ideology. Magwitch is able to reinforce these ideas during his young-adulthood with his life story and personal bond he forms with Pip. Joe and Magwitch, despite having stark differences in their backgrounds, believe the same concepts are integral for Pip’s upbringing: material worth is not as valuable as personal connections and the ability to have an accurate moral compass is important for an enjoyable life. How Pip’s character developed was largely in part to Joe’s parental guidance and Magwitch’s role as a